Skepticism

EVENTS

Creationist sophistry

Did you know that only animals are alive? Bacteria, fungi, and protists…also not alive. This is according to Henry Morris III, creationist. He makes this argument by specifying certain criteria, rather arbitrarily and independent of anything biology has to say — the four things that determine whether something is alive are:

It’s unique. I know, that sounds like it ought to apply to plants, but that’s not really the criterion: after saying “Life is unique”, he explains that it’s because the Bible used the Hebrew word “chay” 763 times, and never applies it to plants. Therefore, the reason plants aren’t alive is Hebrew word use patterns.

Life has independent movement. So things that twitch and crawl are alive, plants don’t, therefore they aren’t. Also, the Bible uses the Hebrew word “ramas” for movement 17 times, and never applies it to plants. Therefore, the reason plants aren’t alive is Hebrew word use patterns.

Life has blood. God sent a clear message by rejecting Cain’s offering of plants — He demands blood sacrifice, nothing else will do. The more potent blood comes from people; the blood of bulls and goats was not sufficient to take away human sins, which was why Jesus had to be sacrificed.

OK, this argument is just ghoulish. His best argument for why plants aren’t alive is that you can’t butcher them to get blood which will magically cure sins?

Life has soul and spirit. So this criterion is for something we can’t see or measure in any way — if recognition of my life is dependent on having a “soul”, then I guess I’m dead already. And once again, Morris pointlessly tells us that the Bible uses the word “nephesh” 753 times and “ruwach” 389 times, never applying it to a plant. Therefore, the reason plants aren’t alive is Hebrew word use patterns.

The only thing this whole mess persuades me of is that creationists are even dumber than I thought.

But I do have to say one thing to his essay’s credit: I agreed with the conclusion.

If God designed death into creation, then death is as “good” as all other factors—and the atheistic evolutionary doctrine is right. Death is the “good” force that brings about the ultimate “fittest” in our universe. Death, therefore, is not “the wages of sin,” and our Lord Jesus’ death was not necessary for salvation—it was just the wasted effort of a deluded martyr.

These teachings cannot be harmonized. Either the Bible is Truth (capitalization intended) or it is Error. The choice is clear. The message is clear. The effect is eternal!

Can you imagine how much ridicule an atheist would receive if they made this argument? The bible teaches that only animals are alive, this is absurd, thus the bible is wrong. I’ll stick with pointing out it gets pi wrong.

It’s unique. I know, that sounds like it ought to apply to plants, but that’s not really the criterion: after saying “Life is unique”, he explains that it’s because the Bible used the Hebrew word “chay” 763 times, and never applies it to plants. Therefore, the reason plants aren’t alive is Hebrew word use patterns.

Sigh

I get the feeling creationists never actually go outside. One day in a sun flower field would disprove this particular but of dumbfuckery.

Life has independent movement. So things that twitch and crawl are alive, plants don’t, therefore they aren’t. Also, the Bible uses the Hebrew word “ramas” for movement 17 times, and never applies it to plants. Therefore, the reason plants aren’t alive is Hebrew word use patterns.

Like I was saying in The Sensuous Curmudgeon: If plants are not alive, then what’s the sense of watering and feeding them? If they have no blood and can’t move, then how does he explain leghemoglobin and the Venus fly traps and other types of carnivorous plants that move when they catch and eat insect prey? Also plants do die. If they’re not alive then what does he call withering which is what plants do when they die. Why are plants dying in areas of the country suffering from extreme drought? If that moronic Morris thinks plants are not alive, then how does he explain the verses in the Bible that tells of plants withering and dying in comparison with humanity (i.e.Psalms 37:2)? Anyone who thinks plants aren’t alive is not only stupid, but indeed worthy of great mockery and ridicule!

Now, now. Be fair. Did you people completely overlook the rigorous SCIENTIFIC methodology he uses in his article?
He counted each and every times the words “chay”, “ramas”, “nephesh” and “ruwach” are used. I mean, how much more analyticy and sciency does the man have to get before you show him the respect he reserves?

Morris obviously isn’t even trying to convince anyone that doesn’t already believe what he does. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be resorting so much to the bible to prove biological points. People who preach to the choir without even knowing they’re the only ones listening have always struck me as particularly pointless and useless people.

So if bacteria et al are not alive, am I innocent of waging a genocidal campaign against them whilst cleaning my bathroom? On a related note, if plants aren’t alive, why the hell do they cease to exist after some time and/or outside intervention? See, it’s this sort of breathtaking idiocy that makes me suspect every “professional” creationist had half of their brain removed after declaring for their garbage religious nonsense. Maybe I have those reversed though. Tell me, Mr. Morris, how the fuck do you remember to breathe?

Morris must not be a True Biblical Scholar, or he would have limited “what’s alive” to organisms with nostrils, as is plainly stated in Genesis 7:22.

Oh, and Sili: “heretical” only applies to those hell-bound bastards over in that congregation, not to Mr Morris and other owners of The Trvth. I’ve seen extended arguments among fundies about soul/spirit/some third entity and whether all nostril-owners have all three or not. Opinions, or I guess The Trvth, differ according as to who is the heretic in any particular discussion.

Life has blood. God sent a clear message by rejecting Cain’s offering of plants — He demands blood sacrifice, nothing else will do. The more potent blood comes from people; the blood of bulls and goats was not sufficient to take away human sins, which was why Jesus had to be sacrificed.

Plants do actually form part of the religious ritual (eg: daubing the sacrificial animal with flour or tying the (human) sacrifice with willow thongs.) These things must be done exactly right, and certainly play an important & integral part in the whole ritual sacrifice thingy. On the other hand, yes, blood is important. And the blood of the god HIMself (lately masculine) is actually very important in order to fructify the earth (Not necessarily human blood – red river water (Adonis) and red wine (jeebus/Dionysus) will do.)

Oops. No blood, etc. That means zygotes and blastocysts are not “life” in this guy’s Biblical world.

Or wait – is it yet another attempt of the Christianist wingnuts to re define words? No doubt there are ways to move those slippery “criteria” around to suit the forced birthers. Kind of like they recently have succeeded in framing new definitions for “free speech”, “bigotry”, “bullying” etc.

At last! A sound argument in support of early-stage pregnancy termination! Until the cells of the embryo differentiate sufficient to form a circulatory system with blood in it, there is no life in it. And this doesn’t happen till after implantation, right? Those who call Plan B an abortifacient can rest easy now, because no life is terminated. Bible-based reasoning is so comforting.

This is just pure stupid. At best what he should have said is that the system of classifying things in the Bible doesn’t make exactly the same life/nonlife distinction modern science does.

This is quite true, and doesn’t necessarily reflect badly on the Biblical authors. As another example, there’s not really a word in ancient Greek that really corresponds well to our modern usage of “life”. “Zoe” usually just referred to animals, much like how Morris says the Hebrew word “chay” works. And “bios” meant a way of life, more like our word “biography” than “biology”.

Does that mean the Greeks and Hebrews were wrong? No. does that mean modern scientists are wrong because they don’t divide the world into the same categories the Bible does? No. We are all just a little different in how we use language to describe our world. There are strengths and weaknesses to each system.

Finally, I am sure that an ancient Greek philosopher would agree that there’s something similar and important about plants and animals and find it interesting that we had one short word to group them in that category. You could probably find an ancient Hebrew who thought the same thing.

Morris’ problem here is worse than not understanding science, and he surely doesn’t, he doesn’t even have the imagination to understand how language works.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my mother when I was fifteen. She claimed that fish, birds, insects, lizards etc. weren’t animals, because they didn’t have fur.

Now this wasn’t a case of confusing mammal with animal, she used the two interchangeably. In her mind they were the exact same thing. This was also her justification for being a vegetarian, but still eating fish and poultry.

So I asked her, “If they aren’t animals, and they aren’t plants, what are they? Minerals?”

I think the light finally went on… she’s full vegan now. Thanksgiving dinner is no fun any more.

It seems that one of the biggest arguments in favor of religion & creation is that the alternative is uncomfortable. Do you find mortality uncomfortable, the fallacy of bible myths uncomfortable, your kinship to a chimpanzee uncomfortable? That’s fine because religion has an alternate reality that will make you feel so good. All you have to do is overlook those unfortunate problems that all that evidence seems to indicate that it is false.

Death is the “good” force that brings about the ultimate “fittest” in our universe.

No, see, death is the supreme good, as the death of Jesus saves. Evilutionists just don’t deify death like Jeebus did, which is why we’re so evil.

As for the Biblical argument that plants, etc., aren’t alive, it’s no doubt “true.” Anima is life, animals have anima (I know this is latin derivation, not Hebrew, but they tended share beliefs in the Mediterranean), plants don’t move. Well, any plants involve movement–how else could one grow?–but not obviously like animals do.

Jeebus is supposed to have said that the seed dies–then the plant comes alive (something like that)–in one of his parables, however, apparently running the old death theme as a good thing. I don’t know how it reads in the Greek, though.

Morris is just running creationist “logic” deep into stupid ground. Gee, how about the genes that we share with plants, do they contribute to non-life portions of our bodies?

Every year, we plant seeds which grow up, flower, set seed, and are then harvested.

This simple fact feeds 7 billion people.

If plants didn’t move slowly (grow), we wouldn’t even exist.

FWIW, a lot of bacteria move and quite rapidly. They have rotating flagella and swim. E. coli and Pseudomas among them as anyone who ever looked at them under a microsope knows. Others have gliding motility.

If God designed death into creation, then death is as “good” as all other factors—and the atheistic evolutionary doctrine is right. Death is the “good” force that brings about the ultimate “fittest” in our universe. Death, therefore, is not “the wages of sin,” and our Lord Jesus’ death was not necessary for salvation—it was just the wasted effort of a deluded martyr.

These teachings cannot be harmonized. Either the Bible is Truth (capitalization intended) or it is Error. The choice is clear. The message is clear. The effect is eternal!

… And yet Morris still manages to get this clear choice wrong – the evidence for evolutionary processes is overwhelming, while the creationist blather is not even internally consistent, let alone consistent with the evidence, as Morris’s own confused and scientifically illiterate argument demonstrates.

As jimmauch points out @ 34, this is not about anything so high-minded as a pursuit of truth or a defence of personal integrity – this is about not being able to deal with realities that the likes of Morris find uncomfortable; so they will employ any pseudo-logic (no matter how distorted) and any argument (no matter how nonsensical) to protect their cherished delusions.

Creationsts, like many other brands of theists and newage wooists, are fundamentally fearful people who are simply incapable of dealing with the universe as it actually is (seemingly mostly because they find the fact of their own mortality unbearable), and so instead retreat into religion’s tailor made, comforting fantasy that if you follow all the ridiculous rituals, hate the people you are supposed to hate and, most importantly, never think for yourself overmuch; then, if you really, really believe, and you close your eyes, click your ruby slippers together three times, and say “there’s no place like heaven”, then you get to live forever in Yahweh’s/Allah’s/Odin’s/*Insert fictional deity of choice’s* bespoke post-mortem disneyland, where there is bliss/virgins/mead/*insert favoured Pavlovian reward stimulus* on tap.

They simply cannot conceive that there exist people who find ludicrous afterlife-myths unsatisfying, and would prefer to face the reality of the universe – with all its beauty and also all its uncompromising elements, even the inevitability of one’s own death – rather than sink into stultifying self-delusion.

Easy really: Don’t ever use as insults based on aspects of people’s identity that they have no control over and that they do not share in common with everyone about them. (Sex, race, gender, abilities ….)

Life has blood. God sent a clear message by rejecting Cain’s offering of plants — He demands blood sacrifice, nothing else will do.

Ergo, plants don’t have “blood” and aren’t alive? I’m no biologist, but I’m pretty sure that plants have their equivalent of blood complete with a fluid transport system. When I cut off the stem end off a fresh head of lettuce last night, white fluid drained onto the table. Pine trees ooze sap in the heat of summer in Florida. It’s collected into pans by gashing the bark of the trees and used in a variety of products. A similar technique is used to gather maple syrup. I guess poor Mr. Morris never had any on his waffles.

Why do I suspect that this is just a preemptive strike before Nasa’s Mars Science Laboratory and Curiosity rover land with it’s more precise tools to look for signs of life? Cause then it doesn’t matter what you find elsewhere in the universe, if it aint human it aint life and thus no question of how small and insignificant we are is irrelevant.

PZ would have to nerd-snipe me with this, just when I have no time to try and figure out how much full of shit Henry Morris III is.

But I will point out that I was reminded of 1 Corinthians 15:35-38 — which I grant was written in Greek rather than Hebrew — which says:

But someone may ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. (NIV)

So it looks like Paul of Tarsus implicitly disagreed with the earlier bible writers on whether plants were alive.

And as already noted, if plants are not alive, then neither are human embryos until they have blood and start to “twitch”. So “life” most certainly does not begin at conception.

— — — — — — — —
BTW speaking of death, I thought the way of Bushido was death?
There is certainly a death cult meme in its elevation of death.
And don’t get me started on the SS-type cult of loyality above else that is inherent in Bushido.
When I think about it, maybe fundies and samurai freaks should join forces.

And exactly 23-1/2 angels can dance on the head of a pin. I know because the word “dumbass” is used 23-1/2 times in the Babble. And, now that we’ve settled those two issues, let’s discuss virgin birth. (Mumble…mumble…child support payments…cough…cough)

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my mother when I was fifteen. She claimed that fish, birds, insects, lizards etc. weren’t animals, because they didn’t have fur.

I once asked my catholic mother-in-law why she could believed eating fish on friday was okay but eating meat was not. Her response was that “a fish is not an animal, so it isn’t meat.” She was mildly offended at my reaction, and later had the old priest at her church tell me that, indeed, a fish was not an animal. Neither could not provide support for the claim, so i never found out where their particular bit of stupidity originated.

The PC aspects of allowed insults has gotten too complicated when even nyms are subject to condemnation. So we are not allowed to use gender, sexual preference/wiring, age, body type, ethnicity, nationality, appearance, mental health status, female body parts … We can’t use “retard,” but are allowed to use idiot, moron, cretin, imbecile, stupid …? This being Pharyngula, we are allowed to insult any religious and some political and philosophical opinions. Some common and more or less legal sex acts, as well as unlikely ones, are used as insults. I see no consistency.

Given Morris’ ignorance of real geology it’s no surprise to see his ignorance of botany. I’m trying to imagine some shriveled guy reading and counting words in some incorrect copy of ancient fables and thinking that this activity has any value of any kind. And the deluded shall rise again.

Culch – people currently call folks with developmental delays retard. Therefore it’s an insult with splash damage. It doesn’t just hurt the person you’re trying to insult. It hurts a whole class of people. That’s not cool.

The PC aspects of allowed insults has gotten too complicated when even nyms are subject to condemnation.

This is just fucking stupid. It has nothing to do with this mythical PC bugbear assholes so love to claim is causing so much harm to discourse. It’s about common fucking decency in not denigrating people using words that draw fault to an unchangeable trait.

I once was brushing my teeth outdoors, idly wondering if I’d been where I was long enough to catch some nasty disease. I rinsed out my toothbrush and shook the water out of it. Some of the drops fell onto a little plant, which instantly folded all its leaves, curled up and died.

The PC aspects of allowed insults has gotten too complicated when even nyms are subject to condemnation.

You draw the line just for nyms? So if I used a nym like, say, “wopkiller”, that would be ok by you, especially if I’m Italian?

We can’t use “retard,” but are allowed to use idiot, moron, cretin, imbecile, stupid …?

What Muse said. “Retard” still has a much harsher bite than the others do, regardless of the fact that they were all coined at the same time. I think partly, ironically enough, because it was used as a clinical term for so much longer. There are still a lot of city/county programs for the developmentally disabled that have the name “retarded” as part of their name, so it has a much tighter link with a specific group of people than the other words do. And if you want to see someone who holds tight to the purist line that they’re all bad, head over to Camels With Hammers.

Given Morris’ ignorance of real geology it’s no surprise to see his ignorance of botany. I’m trying to imagine some shriveled guy reading and counting words…

This is Morris III. The older Morris isn’t a shriveled old guy, he is past that stage i.e. dead.

Morris III is relatively young. I looked at a picture from google and now wish I hadn’t. He even looks creepy.

And yeah, his ignorance of biology is profound. Some plants do move. In primitive plants like ferns, there is alternation of generations. The gametophytes produce male gametes and female gametes. The male gametes reach the female ones by…swimming. I don’t know if they have tails, cilia, or flagella but they do fertilization just like a lot of animals.

His god babble is so ignorant and stupid, I wonder why he even bothers. It won’t convince anyone with a grade school education. I suppose it all comes down to the usual…money. He makes a decent living babbling like a loon for the loons, easy work.

PS He probably didn’t count the words himself. It’s usually done by computers using simple decades old search functions.

Snide insults, while my points about inconsistency are being ignored.
“Retarded” certainly is a 20th century euphemism for the people currently called “developmentally disabled” or “developmentally delayed,” the people formerly called imbeciles, morons, idiots, cretins. You have decided one synonym is off-limits, while others are not. Your prerogative, but I don’t have to agree that it makes any sense. It’s like saying pissing and urinating is okay, but “making water” is obscene.

“Retard” still has a much harsher bite than the others do, regardless of the fact that they were all coined at the same time. I think partly, ironically enough, because it was used as a clinical term for so much longer.

Well, but wait. Unlike the nouns in the list, “retarded” is an adjective with a general meaning. In this context it was always used with the adverb ‘mentally’. ‘Mental retardation’ and ‘mentally retarded’–referring literally to relatively slow development rather than intelligence per se–were the PC terms of their time. These general phrases replaced older, often more specific terms like idiot, moron, cretin, and mongoloid, and that was good.
I doubt that the noun ‘retard’, or even ‘mental retard’ has ever been used clinically. It’s a purely playground coinage, a slur from day one.

BTW speaking of death, I thought the way of Bushido was death?
There is certainly a death cult meme in its elevation of death.
And don’t get me started on the SS-type cult of loyality above else that is inherent in Bushido.
When I think about it, maybe fundies and samurai freaks should join forces.

The Bushido itself is a Shogunate era creation, made to justify the privileged position of the samurai class in a time of extended peace. In the Sengoku period (the most often romanticized era of samurai lore), samurai didn’t care one bit about codes of honor and sacrifice; with the constant wars, you either were good at killing and got far, or you got killed by the ones who were.

If God designed death into creation, then death is as “good” as all other factors—and the atheistic evolutionary doctrine is right. Death is the “good” force that brings about the ultimate “fittest” in our universe. Death, therefore, is not “the wages of sin,” and our Lord Jesus’ death was not necessary for salvation—it was just the wasted effort of a deluded martyr.

These teachings cannot be harmonized. Either the Bible is Truth (capitalization intended) or it is Error. The choice is clear. The message is clear. The effect is eternal!

The conclusion is correct. Now, I have a question: how does Morris explain where death comes from? IIRC, the Bible is pretty clear on where death comes from – it is God’s will. God designed people and animals such that they eventually die, and he was a pretty big fan of genocide too. The Flood, for example. Looks to me like Morris the Moron is digging himself a logical hole.

Re: the whole ‘fish aren’t animals’ thing (I admittedly skipped from about post 40-80), I was at a YEC presentation, where they made the mistake of giving said presentation at a university. One of the YEC supporters kept making stupid comments in support of the lecturer, when the rest of the crowd started grilling said lecturer about some idiocy or another. At one point, the supporter claimed that only ‘aminals with nostrils’ are alive. So crustaceans, fish, etc. are not considered animals..or alive…from a biblical perspective.

My lovely, and oh so snarky, wife asked about shellfish then with ‘What’s a clam, a motile rock?’.

I don’t think the cretinist got the humor. The guy doing the presentations eventually gave up doing them at the U, and moved to one of the local churches instead.

“Retarded” certainly is a 20th century euphemism for the people currently called “developmentally disabled” or “developmentally delayed,” the people formerly called imbeciles, morons, idiots, cretins. You have decided one synonym is off-limits, while others are not. Your prerogative, but I don’t have to agree that it makes any sense.

And if this was that time in which “imbeciles, morons, idiots, cretins” were terms used with the same specific bite as “retarded”, they’d certainly be off limits, and “retarded” would likely (but not certainly) be a more acceptable term.

Give it half a century; maybe “retard” will have the same meaning as “imbecile” does today, and no longer carry the same sting. The taboo goes away when the specific reference to the mentally disabled leaves the zeitgeist.

… the “breath of life” or the factor of consciousness which is associated with life in the Biblical sense. …

It is apparently centered physically in the brain which, with its fantastically complex electric circuitry and associated nervous system, is undoubtedly the most highly organized and intricately structured type of system in the universe. Its functioning, of course, depends on the blood, with its “soul,” and the “breath” with its oxygen. …

The above considerations indicate that plants do not possess life in this Biblical sense. They are merely extremely complex replicating systems of organic chemicals. It is significant that they were “brought forth” (Genesis 1:12) on the third day, prior to the first creation of “living creatures” on the fifth day.

The same is perhaps true of the simpler forms of what men have defined as the animal kingdom, although the exact dividing-line between conscious living creatures and non-conscious replicating systems is not yet clear, either from Biblical definitions or scientific study. … When men and animals were given instructions to eat the fruits and herbs God had created, this was therefore quite consistent with the fact that there was originally no death in the world.

Pierce R. Butler, you’ll also recall that Noah didn’t have to take any plants on the ark. The biblical understanding seemed to be that plants don’t breath, and they’d all be fine underwater—which kinda throws a cog into the flood geologists who rave about massive sedimentation.

The breath of life is mentioned with the creation of Adam, I think. I was told that the syllable “spir” in “respire” and “spirit” have the same origin.

The Morrises need to get their shit in line with everybody else (and themselves).

So Morris thinks that death wasn’t part of the original design? Wow, it sure is amazing watching these guys try to wriggle away from logic. But even if we disregard the ecological implications and Abel’s sacrifices and so on, it doesn’t help Morris’ conclusion at all. He’s still stuck with the fact that God designed death to be part of creation. From the standpoint of his “argument” it doesn’t matter when God introduced death or why, merely that he did choose to introduce it at some point.

“Retard” is unacceptable because it is intended solely as a slur for people with mental handicaps. “Retarded”, used in a clinical sense, is still acceptable, because it is still used in diagnostic criteria. Using the same word to insult something is unacceptable, as in “that rule is severely retarded”, is, again, unacceptable, as it is using mental handicaps as an insult.

My daughter with Down syndrome, in more dated terminology, is mentally retarded. “Retarded” in this sense, is “slowed”.

She is NOT, however, a “retard”, in the same way a gay man is not a “faggot” and a lesbian woman is not a “dyke”.

Idiot, moron, etc are so far removed from their original clinical terms that they no longer have the specific intention of dehumanizing people with mental disabilities.

Everyone’s all fretting over whether “retard” is PC.
How about “fat head”?Dr. Morris, D.Min has a factually fat head.
I’m not sure what he keeps in that head though.
——–
Biblical. Accurate. Certain.
Reminds me of:
Little. Yellow. Different.

I agree with you wholeheartedly, myself having worked many times (in a medical capacity) with the Special Olympics…much more fun and rewarding than the other dozens of sport events that I have worked. I don’t see any point in using – or defending the use – of this word.

Just curious what your thoughts on this video are (from a YouTuber who typically posts vids relating to atheism):

The babbling of twits. . . sorry if any of you twits are offended, but this guy is a prime example of the genus.

Twit: twittius maximus ignorami.
Any of the specie of blithering fool who put forth so-called theories which make no sense, are logically fallacious, or just plain impossible.
Specie include but are not limited to Creationtwit, Vaccinotwit, (Vaccine No Twit) , Climatotwit, also known as Warmingdeniatwit, or more simply Wattus Idioticus.

Poor old Dr. Frankenstein stitched together bits and pieces of various “fresh” human parts in hope that he could energize them with the terrible force bound up in lightning flashes during a thunderstorm. We know now that such an effort is silly, but less than a hundred years ago those concepts were the staple of theories that attempted to find a natural explanation for how life got started.

We know now that such an effort is silly? So transplants don’t work, then?

Those concepts were the staple of theories that attempted to find a natural explanation for how life got started? When was that?

My google-fu has utterly failed me on this occasion, but I recall seeing a documentary that showed time lapse footage of two competing vines growing side by side up a building wall…

Not only could you see the vines stretching out and “feeling” their way up the wall as they grew, but each plant would shoot out tendrils toward the other and try to pull the other vine away from the wall.

This was all happening on a timescale of weeks. The battle was imperceptible without time lapse.

It was fascinating, if not a little creepy, to watch.
I wish I could find a video clip of it.

Poor old Dr. Frankenstein stitched together bits and pieces of various “fresh” human parts in hope that he could energize them with the terrible force bound up in lightning flashes during a thunderstorm. We know now that such an effort is silly, but less than a hundred years ago those concepts were the staple of theories that attempted to find a natural explanation for how life got started.

I have simple question to Mr. Morris v3.0 – how many times the bible describes our world as “ball”, “sphere”, “globe”, or “oblate spheroid”? I would be very interested in conclusions of this particular study. :)

Hmm…when Adam was given Lilith as a sexual mattress, he spurned her and bonked all sorts of non-human stuff. That made Lilith angry and grossed-out and she left him, requiring Yahweh to create the more subservient Eve.

So “life” in the biblical sense might be defined as “anything Adam might have had sex with”. Adam did not bonk fish, therefore fish= not life.
.
Well, it is a hypthesis as good as any.

— — — — —
“Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus” is an old book.
The bible is an old book.
The bible is true.
Therefore, Frankenstein cannot be a work of fiction.

That last paragraph really changed my whole opinion. I didn’t know that capitalizing fuckwittery somehow changed its fantasy status to reality. Maybe that was Stuart Smalley’s problem. He never capitalized his whole mantra.

So, this is what it comes to? A comedy website accidentally refuting creationists? For the previously mentioned vine twining, see #1. For slime molds, see #2. For plant growth during fruit decomposition, see the end of the first video in #3. Creationist sophistry might be able to count the latter two as just growth and not technically movement (which would conveniently highlight one of the major indications of life that Morris managed to completely ignore) but the vine twirling (before it finally reaches something to twirl around) clearly is movement.